Coughing/ Throat Clearing | Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

This leaflet has been produced to give you general information on your problem and how it can be treated. It is not intended to replace the discussion between you and your doctor or Speech and Language Therapist (SLT). If after reading it you have any concerns or questions, please talk to a member of the healthcare team.

Coughing is the body’s protective reflex that removes foreign bodies away from the lungs and upper airway passages. Repeated coughing however has a number of negative side effects such as:

Redness and swelling around the voice box and upper airway
Increasing thickened secretions around the voice box
Persistent coughing can impact on quality of life with disruption of sleep and breathing patterns, urinary incontinence (stress), hernias and back pain.

Chronic coughing can become a viscous cycle. Once you have coughed, you will often feel the need to take a big breath and cough again. By doing this you are effectively “feeding” the cough as each big breath further irritates the lungs and throat and stimulates a cough.

Stopping Persistent Coughing

A dry cough is a type of irritation that can be triggered by several factors including:

Chemicals such as smoke, spray cleaners, perfumes, air fresheners, deodorants, paints, varnish
Drying agents such as dust, sawdust, powders, powdered medication
Spicy foods
Laughing, singing, shouting
Cold, dry or fast-moving air hitting the throat.

To stop a cough, we need to manage the irritation and then introduce cough distraction techniques to help reduce your over-sensitive cough reflex.

Reduce irritation:

Keep well hydrated
Adopt strategies to cope with thick and sticky secretions
If indicated, manage symptoms of reflux

Cough Distractions:

Instead of coughing, take a sip of water and/or a dry swallow
Pursed lip breathing

The above strategies will help break the viscous cycle

General Advice and Consent

Most of your questions should have been answered by this leaflet, but remember that this is only a starting point for discussion with the healthcare team.

Consent to treatment

Before any doctor, nurse or therapist examines or treats you, they must seek your consent or permission. In order to make a decision, you need to have information from health professionals about the treatment or investigation which is being offered to you. You should always ask them more questions if you do not understand or if you want more information.

The information you receive should be about your condition, the alternatives available to you, and whether it carries risks as well as the benefits. What is important is that your consent is genuine or valid. That means:

you must be able to give your consent

you must be given enough information to enable you to make a decision

you must be acting under your own free will and not under the strong influence of another person

Information about you

We collect and use your information to provide you with care and treatment. As part of your care, information about you will be shared between members of a healthcare team, some of whom you may not meet. Your information may also be used to help train staff, to check the quality of our care, to manage and plan the health service, and to help with research. Wherever possible we use anonymous data.

We may pass on relevant information to other health organisations that provide you with care. All information is treated as strictly confidential and is not given to anyone who does not need it. If you have any concerns please ask your doctor, or the person caring for you.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018 we are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any information we hold about you. For further information visit the following page: Confidential Information about You.

If you or your carer needs information about your health and wellbeing and about your care and treatment in a different format, such as large print, braille or audio, due to disability, impairment or sensory loss, please advise a member of staff and this can be arranged.